“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” It was 2002, and Dick Cheney had just delivered that chilling line to the world. As politicians, civilians and journalists digested its broad implications, a team of reporters at Knight Ridder were told to “see if we can nail them down.” This is their story.

Here is the first trailer forShock and Awe, director Rob Reiner’s politically charged film starring Woody Harrelson and James Marsden as Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, two of the KR staffers who began “working on a theory that the [Bush] administration’s already decided to go to war and are now focused on how to justify it.” Things rachet up when a source tells them, “It’s not a theory.”

Reiner also stars in Shock and Awe as John Walcott, then the Washington bureau chief of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain. Also starring are Tommy Lee Jones as the chain’s military affairs consultant, along with Milla Jovovich, Jessica Biel, Luke Tennie, and Richard Schiff.

Written by Joey Hartstone, the film will get an exclusive run on DirecTV starting June 14 before hitting theaters July 11 via Vertical Entertainment. Have a look at the trailer and tell us what you think.